The latest version of the Mac OS X known as Tiger brings Jabber support to iChat which indirectly supports other messaging protocols like MSN, ICQ, AIM and IRC.
So you can even use an existing MSN or icq account and simply chat with msn or icq users with ichat. No more need of extra softwares such as adium. This can be done in 6 easy steps.

Jabber is an open alternative to consumer IM services. Unlike these commercial services, Jabber is a decentralized network. It works similar to email servers in which anyone can download the Jabber server application and run it in their server to offer Jabber. Because of this, there is no global username, there is unique usernames on each server thus you can have multiple jabber accounts on different servers. The username is in the form of an email address. So, if I get a jabber account at jabberserverx.com then my jabber username would be myusername@jabberserverx.com . Each Jabber server can be configured differently to offer support for MSN, ICQ, AIM, IRC, Yahoo, Email Gateway and even File Transfer. You can find a grid of the Jabber servers and its supported protocols here. Why should you care about this? You should care because it?s open, free and it?s seems to be the only way to bring Yahoo and MSN Messenger into iChat.

[b]Step 1: Get your account set up[/b]
If you don?t have an MSN or Yahoo account, you need to create one. A hotmail account could be used for MSN. Create an MSN account at passport.net.

[b]Step 2: Get a Jabber Client App[/b]
Since iChat has only basic support for Jabber, you need a Jabber Client Application to create a Jabber account. We?re going to use Psi, one of many Jabber Client Applications.

Go to PSI?s website psi.affinix.com and select the Mac OS version of PSI and the mirror server closest to you.

more details and screenshots from All forces

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Filed under: Apple - @ May 11, 2005 9:57 pm